Steven Spielberg's “Bridge of Spies” opens with a shot of a man looking in a mirror as he paints a nearly-complete self-portrait. The man is shot from behind. We are not really seeing “him.”Download Bridge of Spies Movie, We are looking at two reflections, one in glass and one in watercolors. The truth is in the middle. This duality of perception vs. reality and, eventually, the concept of those three triangular points of interest (reflection, man, painting)—which look similar but aren’t quite—will resurface in “Bridge of Spies,” a daring, studied, mannered true story that is at once remarkably genuine and deeply cinematic at the same time. It’s one of the best films of the year.
As he has done at least a dozen times before, Spielberg captures the arc of a man who is caught up in something bigger than himself and somehow rises to the occasion. The “Man Under Pressure” this time is Jim Donovan (Tom Hanks), an insurance lawyer called into duty by his government when the aforementioned painter, a man named Rudolph Abel (Mark Rylance),Download Bridge of Spies, is captured for the crime of espionage against the United States on behalf of the USSR. It is 1957, and the Cold War is a constant concern. Adults still discuss the Rosenbergs around the dinner table while Jim’s children learn about how easily they’ll survive nuclear fallout if they just duck and cover or fill their bathtubs with drinking water. Donovan is asked to serve as Abel’s defense attorney by his boss (Alan Alda), who just wants Donovan to be a warm body—someone to sit next to the traitor to make sure the judicial process runs appropriately.
One gets the impression—ably assisted by Hanks’ steely-eyed determination, which recalls the movie icons of cinema's golden age—that Donovan has never just been a cog in a machine. And so he actually tries to mount a defense for Abel, arguing that the seizure of evidence was unconstitutional and making the case that the death penalty would be a politically bad move,Watch Bridge of Spies Online, even if the public desperately wants to see Abel hanged. Donovan argues that Abel not only represents valuable political currency, which could come in handy if the US ever needs to negotiate with the Russians, but also that Abel should be treated as we would want any American POW to treated in turn. If you think about it, Abel was just doing a job, right? He’s not a traitor to his country. Isn’t it the same job our men are doing around the world? Does that deserve the death penalty? What message would that send regarding the treatment of our captured men around the world?
Of course, Donovan is right, and the international picture gets more complicated when a pilot named Francis Gary Powers (Austin Stowell) is captured by the Russians. Despite having no real experience in espionage—which is good because he can’t be seen as a spy, or even a representative of the U.S. Government—Donovan is sent in to mediate the exchange.Download Bridge of Spies movie in DVD, Once again, Donovan has difficulty doing the bare minimum. In the traditional of the typical Spielberg protagonist, Donovan is a man who doesn’t only do what’s asked of him, he does more. In Spielberg’s vision of the world, this is essential to the image of not only great men, but also to the idea behind the United States—in theory, our leaders don’t simply do what’s necessary, they do what others tell them is impossible. Spielberg’s historical epics have always tended to this examination of overreaching greatness, from Oskar Schindler to Abraham Lincoln.
From the very first scene, which is executed with minimal sound design and no score, Spielberg and his technical team work almost like Abel’s painting—focused, deliberate and remarkably quiet. (There’s no score for 27 minutes,Download and Watch Bridge of Spies Movie, until Donovan is followed in the rain, facing his first realization that this spy game is getting dangerous, and Thomas Newman’s effective work is used sparingly from there.) To a degree that might be off-putting for some brought in by the advertisements that make “Bridge of Spies” look like an action film, this is a movie of dialogue and design,Download Bridge of Spies movie hq, more “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” than “Skyfall.” It’s a film that builds tension through conversation, as Donovan discovers that the world of espionage is really about deal-making and subterfuge. “We need to have the conversation that our governments can’t,” an important player says. This careful approach easily could have been “sexed up” into more of a traditional spy thriller, but instead Spielberg chose to walk a delicate thematic tightrope—too studied and the film becomes dull; too cinematic and it loses its realism.
To say that Spielberg negotiates that tightrope as deftly as Philippe Petit would be an understatement. You could take any scene from “Bridge of Spies” and examine it on two distinct but intertwined levels. First, look at the breathtaking attention to detail—the costume design, the sets—and realize how lived-in it all seems. Even the Donovan home (Amy Ryan plays the concerned wife in a slightly underwritten role) looks remarkably genuine. This film does not fall into the typical period piece trap where it feels more like modern actors playing dress-up than an actual glimpse at history. And yet Spielberg and his team find channels for cinematic vision within that realism. Look at the color palette distinguishing the United States from Germany.Download Bridge of Spies movie DVD CAM, When Donovan gets to Europe, everything is washed in blue and gray. Even East Germany has a different color scheme than West, washed out by the ongoing building of the Berlin Wall. Every decision in “Bridge of Spies” feels carefully considered, informing both the realism of the piece and its deeply cinematic purpose.
That purpose is embodied in one of the best performances of Tom Hanks’ career. It’s a turn that is easy to take for granted at first. Hanks’ reputation as cinema’s everyman is sometimes too broadly defined. Yes, he rose to fame by finding something inherent in the average man, but he’s also often the smartest and most morally upstanding man in the room. Like Henry Fonda,Download Bridge of Spies movie all quality, he isn’t just an everyman—he’s the BEST of the everymen. This role takes that element of the Hanks persona and puts it at the heart of the Cold War and even American foreign policy. Why was America the best country in the world after World War II? Because we had men like Jim Donovan. And yet Hanks doesn’t overplay that heroism, finding the perfect balance between extraordinary and ordinary person. Spielberg and company even give Donovan a coughing, sneezing cold in the final act, highlighting that this flesh-and-blood man is far from 007.
Hanks is well supported by an equally-great turn from Rylance. The wonderful actor understands what Abel and Donovan see in each other—they are both men following orders. They are both men who refuse to take the easy way out. And they are both men who can see the bigger picture easier than most, knowing that it is the portrait that subsists,Download Bridge of Spies HD, not the real man. It is the image, the record, the interpretation that goes in the history books.At this point, it would be easy to go on to praise Matt Charman and Joel & Ethan Coen’s striking script or examine Janusz Kaminski’s color choices and Michael Kahn’s razor-sharp editing, but we’ve probably already surpassed praise overload. Suffice to say, every technical choice feels like the right one. There are a few moments in the mid-section of the film that feel a bit repetitive—a few too many “will Jim do the right thing?” conversations, when we know damn well he will—but it’s a minor complaint, especially when the film gets to Europe, the pace picks up again, and it never looks back.
Since Steven Spielberg began making films in the 1970s, he’s become one of our most essential cinematic historians. He’s often characterized as a director of the fantastic, and films like “Jurassic Park” and “A.I. Artificial Intelligence” certainly bolster this viewpoint, but it is his ability to distill world events into relatable, human stories in films like “Munich,” “Schindler’s List,” “Saving Private Ryan,” “Lincoln,” and many more that has arguably been underrated throughout his long and varied career. “Bridge of Spies” continues that tradition, in the best possible way.Completing his stoic,Download Bridge of Spies HD , dry oatmeal trilogy of noble characters (which includes “War Horse” and “Lincoln”), director Steven Spielberg finally finds some sense of tempo again with the Cold War drama, “Bridge of Spies.” Moving forward on the talky but eventful tale of a prisoner exchange negotiation, the celebrated helmer works past his interest in pained reflection, trying to summon procedural snap to what’s otherwise a tale of men discussing other men in frigid locations. While it doesn’t always welcome suspense, “Bridge of Spies” is intelligent and paced, anchored by a sensational lead performance by Tom Hanks, who once again makes magic with Spielberg in this, their fourth collaboration.
In the late 1950s, Russian spy Rudolf Abel (Mark Rylance) is arrested in New York City, set up for a death penalty conviction as a way to calm growing American fears of nuclear war. James B. Donovan (Tom Hanks) is an insurance attorney hand-picked to defend Able in court. After wading through a difficult legal battle with biased officials, all the while losing his reputation in the media, Donovan secures a lengthy sentence for his client, avoiding the electric chair.Download Bridge of Spies HD , When military pilot Frances Gary Powers (Austin Stowell) is shot down over Russian territory in a secret U-2 spy plane, his resulting imprisonment causes U.S. Government officials to panic, worried that sensitive information might fall into enemy hands. Called back into duty, Donovan is transformed into a secret agent, slipping into newly walled off East Germany to begin negotiations with Russian and German officials to bring Powers home in a trade for Able.
Other productions would likely stretch out true superpower connections featuring Able, building the story around his identity as a possible spy on American soil. “Bridge of Spies” does away with any questions in first five minutes of the movie, following Able around NYC as he covertly collects miniature codes to carry out his mission.Watch Bridge of Spies Online IPOD, Able is the Red Menace, but “Bridge of Spies” doesn’t seek to condemn the unnervingly patient man during his darkest hour. Instead, the screenplay (credited to Matt Charman and Joel & Ethan Coen) builds a tentative friendship between the Russian and the American, focusing on Donovan’s idealism when it comes to the preservation of due process. Able isn’t receiving a fair shake, facing a public that’s scared of what he represents and a judge (Dakin Matthews) who only wants to see the convicted man fry for his crimes. Without a mystery to massage, Spielberg takes the tale into different directions, spotlighting Donovan’s intelligence and skill with debate, while Able is viewed as a peaceful man who loves to paint, calmly accepting the fate presented to him.
Courtroom displays and backroom dealings are only a small part of “Bridge of Spies,” which also explores Donovan’s relationship with his anxious family, with wife Mary (Amy Ryan) trying to remain a rock, while his oldest daughter (Eve Hewson -- and yes, Bono’s daughter has been cast in a movie about the U-2 spy plane) dodges bullets in the living room as the public makes their feelings known about the lawyer’s role in Able’s controversial case. Pressure builds at work too,Watch Bridge of Spies Online For With High Speed, but Donovan holds tight to his beliefs and duty, taking Able’s appeal to the Supreme Court. Woven throughout “Bridge of Spies” is a subplot concerning Powers and his journey over Russia, where he was shot down (the crash sequence is spectacular) and imprisoned, violently questioned by authorities. And there’s a brief amount of time spent on the case of Frederic Pryor (Will Rogers), an American student caught in East Germany, joining Donovan’s case, despite protests from the C.I.A. The screenplay is prone to monologues, but it remains motivated, juggling multiple characters as details concerning the prisoner exchange are hammered out.
The second half of “Bridge of Spies” takes place in East Germany, observing Donovan’s struggle to make sense of Russian and German deceptiveness, which transforms the fight to save lives into conference room game play. Spielberg creates tension in tight spaces, highlighting strange attempts to trick Donovan into submission, but he’s better surveying the location, creating a chilling look at regional desperation and wintertime oppression, backing the lawyer’s odyssey into enemy terrain with a refrigerated atmosphere of paranoia. The feature is packed with ace tech credits, keeping up Spielberg standards with trusted professionals, with composer Thomas Newman the fresh face in the crew, taking over scoring duties from John Williams (who rarely skips a Spielberg gig).Watch Bridge of Spies full movie online, It’s a solidly constructed picture, filled with mood and a wonderful appreciation for the era. Hanks is also excellent, bringing humor and concentration to Donovan that makes the man an authority everywhere he goes, leading with courage and deep pride in the American way, but also keeping a vulnerability about him as the stakes are gradually raised. “Bridge of Spies” is executed superbly, but what’s encouraging here is dramatic fluidity, with Spielberg ditching the mummification of his previous efforts to concentrate on a tone of uncertainty that helps to keep the film moving along with intriguing conflicts and interesting personalities.
